


Lights Out

by bellezza



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Bad end, Gen, i have an unhealthy obsession with zelos's death, tissues recommended
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-21
Updated: 2012-04-21
Packaged: 2017-11-04 01:12:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellezza/pseuds/bellezza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the story ends like this. He's not the hero; he never was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lights Out

> _ take a bow, play the part of a lonely, lonely heart   
>  say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in _

Like that snowy day half a lifetime ago, time slows, the world narrows down to bright pinpricks. Everything in the tower pulses a pale green, but all he sees is red: the red of his hair from the corner of his eye, sticking sweat-slicked to the side of his face; the red of the kid's jacket, conviction-bright. Like the bloom of crimson on white, his eyes are drawn to it as if the color itself is magnetic.

Bodies have their instincts. It's what has him dodging to the left, blocking the brunt of a fire spell, deflecting a strike to his chest and spinning his blade out in a graceful circuit. It's a dance he learned the steps to long ago, as natural as talking, as unconscious as walking, and he can't remember how to stop. Everything is automatic, because if he's honest ( _he's never honest with anyone, least of all himself_ ), this fight only has one outcome.

The damage accumulates bit by bit, adding up like so much baggage, joining the cracks and scars that are already there. All it takes is one final, well-aimed blow and he knows he's finally reached it, his stage left exit, his way out of the game. The joke's on him, though, because pain makes everything brighter, more vivid, too real, and everything he's lost and losing and never had a chance to have is too sharp in his eyes.

Of course they don't understand. They haven't driven away every single thing that was ever good or precious; they still have faith to hold on to; they can _believe_. He forgot how to do that too long ago, and it's past time for relearning. People like him don't belong in the world they want to create. He _wants_ it, though, this thing they're striving for, wants it the way a bird wants to fly even though they'll never succeed. He wants the things they could have given him if he'd been strong enough to try. All they can give him now is peace he doesn't deserve, and all he can give them is an apology he doesn't really mean.

Then heavy footsteps.

Then nothing.

And at last, at last

it all

fades

away.

( _This is the way it always should have been._ )

**Author's Note:**

> Lyrics from "Any Other World" by Mika, one of my go-to Zelos songs.


End file.
